ERIN, TN (WSMV) -
What people saw driving through the city of Erin on Saturday had many shaking their heads on Tuesday.
"It's not fair to everybody else," said Nicole Jones.
They caught the police chief driving his city-owned cruiser, pulling a trailer full of furniture behind. He was moving from one home to another about 10 miles away.
"It's there for police use but not for personal items," said Chuck Blake.
It made some angry enough to pick up their phones and call the mayor's secretary.
"When she called me I said, 'I know this. I told him go ahead and move that one load with it,'" said Mayor Tommy Parchman.
Parchman said the chief called and asked for permission and he gave it.
"I said, 'Sure, I don't see anything wrong with that,'" said Parchman.
Parchman said it's mostly because it was just one trip, it was his final load and the chief would eventually have to move his cruiser to his new house anyway.
"There is nothing wrong with this and I'd rather him have his patrol car while he was unloading everything then have it up there if we had a problem here in the city that he needed to be on," said Parchman.
"I don't think the mayor should be able to just say, 'Well go ahead and do it.' What if he lived 900 miles away?" said Blake.
This wasn't the first time Parchman has been called into question.
In 2006, he was the police chief. He retired after being accused of having pictures of nude women and inappropriate emails on his computer.
Parchman adamantly denies those charges
"Honest then and honest now," said Parchman.
As far as these latest foul cries, Parchman said he'd steer the chief in another direction.
"Everybody says hindsight is 20-20. I would have probably told him, 'No let's not do that.' I had two trucks I would have let him borrow," said Parchman.
Parchman said he's hoping to move on with a lesson learned but he also plans to consult with his council to see if they want to take any action.
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